


thank you for treating me decently

by ObscureReference



Series: back to the sun, back to the shore, back to what i was before [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Character Death, M/M, Major Character Injury, Past Lives, Pre-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 16:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: Ardyn did not see when the arrow pierced Philo’s chest, but he heard it. Horribly.





	thank you for treating me decently

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote [Remembrance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10720311) as a ffxv kinkmeme prompt a while back. Today I planned on writing more of another ffxv fic, but I ended up rereading some old fic today and listening to the song Legally Blonde for the first time, and for some reason it was really good inspiration for this. I didn't intend to write a sequel, but I guess I did. So I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> As noted in the first fic, I didn't think keeping "Prompto" as a name several thousand years in the past worked. So Prompto's past name is Philophrosyne, shortened to Philo, which is also the name of the Greek spirit of friendliness and welcome. Hopefully it fits.
> 
> I wrote this in a few hours, so feel free to point out any mistakes you may see!
> 
> (AU where Ardyn isn't super evil and torture-y, though you can tell a lot of his anger at the Astrals remains.)

The sound Philo made when the arrow sank into his chest would haunt Ardyn for the rest of time.

Ardyn didn’t see it. He was too busy ducking behind a tree, avoiding the bolts fired by the townspeople giving chase rather than facing them head-on. Philo despised violence, and Ardyn could not bring himself to protest.

“They’re still your subjects,” Philo had insisted, the first night they found themselves subject to the hard glares of the city folk and sleeping out in the cold. “They’re just misguided. They don’t know any better.”

They were his subjects who believed they were doing the Astral’s work by ridding the world of another evil brought by the Scourge—namely Ardyn. Philo was just an accessory that refused to leave and therefore guilty by association. Word had long since spread that he had fallen from the Astral’s favor. That he was _tainted_ now. How quickly the tables had turned.

Ardyn had once healed these people as their king. Now they wished to kill him. He could not help the bitterness that simmered in his gut when Philo went quiet and they were left to another night in the forest, fending off monsters on their own. It burned doubly so now that they were running for their lives. Ardyn could have easily cut these simpletons down—merchants who had most likely never held a shovel in their lives and only fired bows for sport—but what kind of king would he have been then? So he took the coward’s way, at Philo’s prompting.

Ardyn would have done anything for Philo. He was the only thing Ardyn had yet to lose.

“Damn it,” he hissed, crouching low. His size usually came to a benefit, but with this part of the forest so thin and cover scarce, it was a detriment now. He raised his voice while keeping his head down. “Please, kind sirs, lay down your—”

There was a rustle off to his left, and Ardyn knew without looking that it was Philo foolishly climbing out of cover to voice his own pleas.

“We’re not going to hurt you!” Philo called out. “Please, I promise we mean you no—”

Philo’s voice cut off with a sickening, wet sound. For a moment, the whole world stood frozen.

“Ah,” Philo said. The softest sound in the world.

There was a muffled _thump_ as he fell back into a pile of leaves. Ardyn turned just in time to watch Philo’s legs give way, his face paling.

Ardyn did not see when the arrow pierced Philo’s chest, but he heard it. Horribly.

He did not think about what he did next. He summoned his own crossbow out of the armiger—summoning which had been becoming more and more difficult over the months, but he forced it now more than ever—and fired off two shots. They hit their targets dead center, and the two villagers dropped like stones. Like Philo.

None of it mattered. Nothing mattered except Philo’s small body curled in on itself in the bushes, choking around the arrow in his chest.

“No!” Ardyn moaned. He slid to his knees beside Philo’s fallen body. “No, no, no, no!”

He swiftly slipped an arm under Philo’s back, hauling him upright and against Ardyn’s chest. He ignored his lover’s pained wheeze as he cupped Philo’s cheek as gently as he could, surveying the damage. There was blood bubbling past Philo’s lips, trickling out the corner of his mouth. The arrow had punctured his lungs. It sat heavy in Philo’s chest, but Ardyn refused to touch it for the moment, afraid of causing more damage and allowing Philo to bleed out quicker.

Ardyn reached for the healing power that had once come so easily, already knowing it was fruitless. It had been weeks since he’d been able to heal even the simplest of cuts. The day they’d realized his healing power had completely faded had been one of Ardyn’s darkest.

He laid his hand against Philo’s chest, just above the arrow. Philo jerked in pain, and Ardyn whispered an apology as the power failed the rise. Just as expected. Nothing.

Philo panted, desperate for air. His lungs couldn’t take in enough oxygen—at least one had collapsed—and Ardyn couldn’t give him any. He was useless. Absolutely useless without his once natural power at his fingertips.

He was no longer a king or a healer. He was the jester, a fool. The damned Astrals had stripped all that from him, and now it was their fault he was losing Philo too.

The thought struck Ardyn like icy lightening.

_He was losing Philo._

“No,” Ardyn gasped. His grip on Philo tightened. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, and in his arms, Philo grew paler and paler. “No, do not leave me. You cannot.”

If Philo could speak, Ardyn already knew what he’d do. He’d crack a joke and say _turn that frown upside down_. Oh, what he would have done to hear that voice now. Philo was so much better at calming Ardyn down than he thought he was. But Philo couldn’t even _breathe_. His gasps were wet and pitiful. He was drowning in his own blood, and Ardyn was absolutely, entirely useless.

“I _love_ you.” Ardyn pressed his lips heavily against Philo’s forehead. He pecked his cheeks, his nose, anywhere he could reach that did not jostle the weapon sunken between Philo’s ribs. “You cannot leave me. I command it.”

Philo had never failed to listen to him before. Or at least when he had, it had been for a reason. For what he viewed as Ardyn’s own good. There was nothing good about this.

When Philo raised a shaky hand, Ardyn immediately grasped it. He pressed Philo’s cool fingers against his cheek, studying his love’s face.

He couldn’t speak, but Ardyn read Philo’s bloody lips easily enough. He’d seen those lips mouth the words a thousand times. _I love you too._

The oxygen-deprived blue of Philo’s lips was the ugliest thing in the world.

“I can’t—” The words stung in Ardyn’s throat. “My love, I cannot—”

Philo squeezed his hand weakly.

_You can_ , he seemed to say. There were pained tears in his eyes. Ardyn’s eyes prickled.

He had no bandages, no supplies, and no proper town within a hundred miles would take Ardyn in now. Philo would be long gone before they made it anywhere that could actually save him.

Ardyn twisted his head, pressing a kiss against Philo’s wrist, against his pulse that skipped every other beat.

“You are the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, because Philo needed to know. He was so quick to doubt his own self-worth, but Ardyn _needed_ him to know. Now more than ever. “You deserve the world, and I should have given it to you.”

Philo made a sound that cleaved Ardyn’s heart in two. He squeezed Prompto’s fingers and shushed him even as his own head swam.

His hand, Ardyn belatedly realized, was shaking.

“I should have given you the world,” he repeated. “And I will never forgive the damned Six for taking you from this one.”

Because it was their fault. Everything was their fault. The Scourge, Ardyn’s disgrace, the arrow in Philo’s chest—all of it. The gods brought nothing but pain and sorrow at their own whimsy. Without them, Ardyn would have been king and Philo would be whole.

Philo made another pained noise, a hitch in his already shortened breath, and Ardyn flinched.

“Please,” Ardyn pleaded. “Save your strength.”

He dipped his head to kiss Philo’s cheek once more. If there were things Philo wanted to say, Philo could not speak them and Ardyn could not hear them.

He shuddered in Ardyn’s arms. His was not an easy death.

It was another minute before the medical portion of Ardyn’s mind informed him that Philo had fallen unconscious due to oxygen deprivation. It was another two minutes before his life came to a stuttering halt.

They were the worst minutes of Ardyn’s life. He was deathly aware of every rise and fall of Philo’s chest, desperately and awfully waiting for every breath Philo took to be his last. Finally, his chest came to a standstill.

Philo no longer suffered. And he was dead.

Ardyn’s anguished wail had been loud enough to shake the birds from their nests.

 

 

Philo had always been light, but somehow he felt even lighter as Ardyn lifted him off the ground and into his arms. He pulled the bloody arrow from Philo’s chest with an awful _pop_ and tossed it aside. He felt strangely empty.

He took Philo back to the sea—past the seaside town he’d first met Philo in and far from the coastline where the Astrals had official deemed Ardyn a daemon. He took Philo back to the sea because that’s where Ardyn knew he’d want to be. And so they went.

 

 

Ardyn decided he hated the sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Can I…” The blond boy hesitated. “Help you?”

By the gods, even his voice sounded the same. The shape of his jaw, the placement of his freckles—everything. Just as Ardyn remembered him, only vibrant. Alive.

Ardyn hadn’t felt like this—hadn’t felt anything _close_ to this—in nigh two-thousand years.

Belatedly, he was aware he was being stared at.

“I am,” Ardyn said. He swallowed, feeling strangely off-kilter and out of time. “A man of no consequence.”

He disappeared, but the bewildered look on the blond boy’s face remained etched behind his eyelids long after.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/)


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